Wednesday, December 2, 2015

LAS VEGAS -- Kyle Busch may have just won NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, but when setting odds for the 2016 season, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook went with last year’s champion, Kevin Harvick, as the 5-to-1 favorite, while installing Busch and two others as co-second favorites at 7-to-1 odds .

It’s easy to understand why Harvick is the favorite. His consistency over the past two seasons has been amazing, and there is little reason to believe his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet won’t be every bit as good in 2016.

How good has Harvick been the past two seasons? For starters, he became the first driver since Jeff Gordon in 1995-96 to lead over 2,000 laps in two consecutive seasons. This past season, he finished in the top-five in 23 of 36 starts, including three wins and 13 second-place finishes.

One case against Harvick winning the Sprint Cup in 2016 is that the rules package might favor other drivers, particularly the four from the Joe Gibbs Racing garage. We got a glimpse this past season of the 2016 package at Kentucky and Darlington, both won by JGR drivers, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

JGR was so far advanced when the low down-force set-up was introduced at Kentucky in July that all four of its drivers finished in the top five. Harvick finished eighth at Kentucky and fifth at Darlington.